The Time Is Now: A Call to Uncommon Courage

by Joan D. Chittister

we want a government that exists for the good of its citizens, that protects rather than oppresses its people, that is an equal partner in the community of nations.

Until now, destiny meant the right to get more of the past. Not now. Instead, the diverse cultural and generational makeup in our country does not yearn for the America of the past because they never knew it.

The prophet is the person who says no to everything that is not of God.

The recurring question about which is the greatest holiness, those who are doers—the martyrs—or those who are the changers—the prophets—is a seductive one.

As the world waits for the legislative insight it will take to restructure social services or raise wage levels, a family can starve.

“The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another and all involved in one another.” THOMAS MERTON

In fact, the early founders and foundresses of religious life—the political martyrs and lay missionaries, visionaries and serious seekers, as well—saw the vision, heard the message, knew the feeling of being more part of the human race than of any particular tribe or clan or religion or nation.

Isn’t “founders” an all inclusive term? Why have “Founders” and “foundresses”?

They are the ones who spend their lives proclaiming—madly and wildly, it seems to those who prefer the silence—that justice will not come until the rest of us demand it.

Do we all agree on what is justice and when it is attained?

Prophetic witness is not about the aggrandizement of the self or winning awards or being accepted socially.

Or we hide behind a false humility: “Other people know better about those things,” we say with the kind of “humility” meant to excuse us from responsibility for the human race.

Except that there are others that know best. The studied ones, the ones who make it their missions to learn about the situations. Not everyone is best at it.

When the institutions lose their way and ignore their own reasons for existence, they become the problem rather than the solution to social ills.

We watch politicians posturing from one interview to the next, pretending to have answers though nothing changes for the people they serve. We see television personalities posing as experts, as if they really had the influence with which they’re credited.